• There are 70,000 Google searches per second
• Google controls 90% market share of the global search engine tools
• Mobile devices account for 63% of global search

Source: Review42

Hence, it is quite evident that the hotel industry can’t be an exception. A report by Forbes states that almost 57% of hotel bookings happen online. That’s quite a number, isn’t it?

Thus, hotels must increase their online presence to tap on the growing digital population. At the same time, there is no reason to run from pillar to post or spend a fortune to increase your online presence.

Google is more than a search engine, there are a slew of Google tools for hotels that enables them to gain online prominence.

Why Should You use Google Tools?

Have a quick look at its benefits

• Makes the property discoverable and improves its SEO ranking
• Builds brand identity and enhances visibility to attract potential bookings
• Gets more number of people interested in your property
• Track and manage the reputation of your hotel and also engages more with your guest

But knowing the benefits alone isn’t enough, you should be aware of the most effective Google tools for hotels. No worries, you need not conduct extensive research. 

In this blog, I will walk you through some of the most useful tools that help in acing the hotel business like a pro.

What are the Most Useful Google Tools for Hotels?

These tools by Google for hotels increase productivity and attract more travellers to hotels. And on top of that, some of them are free. You need to use the right tool for the right job and you are good to go!

#1 Google My Business

Did you know Google My Business for hotels is the most effective tool for hoteliers? It is free, essential for SEO, and makes your hotel appear as a result of local search queries.

Google My Business lets your hotel gain prominence in searches that have the ‘near me’ section. It gives more information on Google Maps about hotels so that travellers are tempted to book them.

Key Benefits

• Travellers can get accurate details about your business along with a plethora of information like phone numbers, opening hours, special amenities, photos, directions, reviews, and a lot more on Google Maps and search

ProTip: To stand out in the crowd, add good quality photos of your property, 360-degree views, videos, engage with your guests, enable chat options so that potential customers can connect with you at ease.

#2 Google Analytics

Like other free tools, Google Analytics for hotels is one such effective tool that helps businesses track and analyse web traffic. It helps you find the acquisition metrics, conversion metrics, or behavioural metrics.

It is as simple as finding out who visited your website, how much time they spent, and the kind of search terms that they used. 

Once you have all the insights you can fix the areas which aren’t functioning well, optimise the website, offer an excellent user experience, and gradually increase conversions.

It is like “A problem well-stated is a problem half-solved.”

Key Benefits

• Enables you to gauge your visitors better and offer an awesome user experience
• Helps you find out which channels bring more travellers to your property’s website
• Let’s you build a result-driven website with data optimisation

#3 Google Search Console

Search Console provides hotels with crucial insights. With the help of Google Search Console, you can find out how your hotel’s website is performing. Search Console gives Google access to your content so that it is monitored well. It also helps you submit fresh content so that Google can crawl it and reflect the changes while removing the old.

Key Benefits

• You can measure your search traffic and performance, fix the bugs, to make your site stand out from the rest
• It helps you analyse your site’s impressions, clicks, and position on Google search
• You may submit sitemaps and individual URLs for crawling for travellers to discover the new content

ProTip: At regular intervals upgrade your site’s content to generate higher rankings. Work on content as per the customer demand to gain more traction

#4 Google Keyword Planner

The specialty of Keyword Planner is that it is linked to your Google Ads account. Using this free tool you can find out the most-searched keywords that are specific to your industry.

Key Benefits

• Helps in creating keyword-rich content which improves search results
• Benefits small and mid-sized hotels since they can craft content with ease taking into account the most-searched phrases or keywords

#5 Google Hotel Ads

Have you ever wondered whenever you plan a trip which is the first place you begin your search? Probably not!

If you think a little you will realise that it is none other than Google.

This is where Google thought of leveraging the opportunity and came up with Google Hotel Ads in 2011. It is a meta-search platform. When you use this tool, the room rates of your hotel are displayed comparing them to other booking engines or OTAs. It helps hoteliers to display their hotel to travellers across devices.

If a hotelier submits up-to-date information in Google such as room rates, availability, and room types, it shows relevant ads to future guests looking for hotels in Google search or Google Maps. However, this is a paid service wherein the advertiser needs to make payment only if the ad is clicked upon and the booking process is accomplished. Also, the ad will appear only when the description of your property matches the search criteria of the traveller.

Key Benefits

• Increases the likelihood of direct qualified traffic to your website
• Gives an opportunity to own guest data and nurture future relationship with them, 
• Increases revenue because by the time the user comes to your website they have already found you after setting certain filters 

#6 Google Free Hotel Booking Links

Recently,Google has launched a Free Hotel Booking Links program for hotels to display their direct booking rates and availability on Google Hotel (Meta) Search and Google Maps.

The free booking links display similar information to the paid ads but the only difference is that it is free. So you have the opportunity to connect with more potential travellers without shelling out a penny.

If you are an existing Hotel Center Partner and already participating in Hotel Ads or listed in Google My Business you become eligible to show free booking links. You need not pay any amount for clicks on the free booking links and the minimum bid is only to indicate eligibility. At the same time, bids won’t have any impact on the ranks of free booking links.

Key Benefits

• Property site can appear across Google when people are looking for hotels
• Can connect with more travellers
• Drive more bookings at no cost

#7 Test My Site

Did you know that almost 88% of travellers switch to a different site in case one does not work well? Isn’t the figure alarming! It is indeed! 

Are you thinking about how to hold on to your potential customers? The answer is simple. Build sites that are mobile-friendly. In case your site isn’t mobile-friendly and takes time to load, chances are high that you will lose half of your visitors. Google’s Test My Site is a free tool that allows you to gauge whether your site is compatible with mobile devices. It is an excellent developer tool that gives hoteliers crucial insights.

Key Benefits

• Understand the potential loss of visitors due to slow load time. 
• Have access to a detailed report about ways to increase the speed of your website and attract more visitors.
• Check the loading time of your peers to have an idea of where you lie in the competition
• Gives a list of instant fixes such as AMP, cache optimisation, or image

According to a report,

#8 Google Trends

Don’t you think unless you figure out the requirements of your guests you can’t cater to it? This is exactly what Google Trends does. This free tool helps you determine the kind of marketing copy for your website to ensure higher conversions. Once you start using the tool you can plug-in various search terms, compare them, and get maximum insights as per specific geographic locations.

Key Benefits

• Helps you make informed decisions about your content or the marketing copy based on the search term that has a wider interest. 
• The icing on the cake is you get specific insights based on each of the search terms.

#9 Think with Google

In the hospitality industry staying ahead of the curve isn’t just desirable, it is essential. This tool from Google can be used by hoteliers to gain valuable insights about their potential customers. When you have the latest data and information about your target audience, it becomes easier to strategise your marketing plan. Unless you have a robust marketing plan in place you can’t meet success but using Think With Google you can almost read the mind of consumers. Voila! That’s quite a bit!

Key Benefits

• Ensures high-level insights that are powered with Google research and search engines
• High-quality understanding of industry trends, consumer behaviour, marketing insights, and so on

#10 Travel Insights with Google

Travel Insights with Google is a  newly launched tool that is like a magic wand for the ones involved in the hospitality industry. Decision-makers in the hospitality industry can gain insights about travellers at every stage right from planning to booking flights or hotels or exploring the local businesses. 

The tool will show the trends in the travel industry. Specifically, it will cater to two types of data, namely the Destination Insights and the Hotel Insights.

With the help of the Destination Insights tool, people involved in the hospitality industry can gauge the top sources of demand of a destination and the top destinations about which travellers are more interested.

Similarly, with the Hotel Insights Tool it is possible to understand where the travel demand within the region comes from. The hoteliers can use this information to make their hotel business stand out.

Key Benefits

• Helps the tourism industry make the right decision at the right time
• Help the industry emerge out stronger during the recovery phase
• Understand the real-time evolving travel trends
• Provides valuable insights into people’s travel aspirations
• Create more modern, sustainable, and inclusive tourism

#11 YouTube

Did you know every day more than 2 billion logged-in users visit YouTube? This humongous figure is almost equal to one-third of the internet population.

YouTube is the most popular video hosting platform in the world and 70% of the YouTube audience come from mobile devices. Hence, YouTube could be the golden goose for hoteliers. And one of the effective Google tools for hotels to promote video content and attract potential guests. You can post catchy videos showcasing your property and lure more visitors to your property.

Key Benefits

• Posting interesting videos on YouTube can help your brand reach the target group
• Distributing video on YouTube offers direct results in Google’s Search Engine results page
• With videos that connect, hotels get an opportunity to further engage with the potential guests

The post 11 Most Useful Google Tools for Hotels For Business Growth appeared first on eZee Absolute.